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Category Archives: roommates

They make it to the blog frequently enough so you probably get that I work with college kids (oops, I chastised one just the other day for using that term; I mean adults). And also that I like what I do. And that I like them (most of them, most of the time).

What may not be clear, however, is that I haven’t really been working with them all that long. In fact, my first batch of babies (adults) will be leaving this spring. Flying out of the nest, so to speak, off into the great beyond.

And I have mixed feelings about their noteworthy transition.

Many of my own friendships are older than these students I tutor, so I get that four years can be but a blimp in a relationship’s foundation. On the other hand, I’ve spent some serious “quality time” with these young adults. They’ve shared much with me. Way more than you’d think. Way more than I ever imagined they would.

When I recently found out that a student of mine had cut class before she’d had a chance to fess up to me, I asked her if she would have been forthcoming with the info.

“I tell you everything,” she said.

And she just might.

Not in the every-detail-of-every-day sort of tell, but in a kind that matters a whole lot more. She’s been through a lot in these past four years. And the thing is, I’ve been through most of it with her.

Now, she’s at the threshold of the other side -where she should be, where she deserves to be.

She’s arrived with grace and resilience and I’m proud of her and who she is today. I am proud of my other students, as well. They’ve turned from teenagers to adults, and as they graduate, they seem to be truly prepared for the next phase of their lives.

I’m happy for them.

I’ll also be sad to see them go.

Changing the subject (not really).

I’ve been, on occasion, technically challenged. The combination of an utter lack of knowledge about what it exactly is that runs the computers that run most of our lives and a sometimes senseless sense of speed are often a poor mix.

Case in point.

I don’t delete the emails and text messages most normal people might. There’s a history here which I won’t go into. Anyway, among the non-deleted text messages on my cell phone were a few (several) from my students.

The messages weren’t left merely to clutter the inbox; they’d been intentionally undeleted.

And then, in a too quick moment of parsing the list, I said yes when I didn’t mean to and every message was gone.

Poof!

I wonder how long they would have remained, had I not make the mistake.

I don’t know. But now they’re gone –for good.

And soon too, will be the kids who texted them.

Because they are ready, perhaps even more than I am, to separate. From their school, from their roommates and college friends -and from me.